SXSW 2012 - Docs are Not Band-Aids for Poor Design

Docs are Not Band-Aids for Poor Design
Event	Interactive 2011
Format	Dual
Organizer	Alexander Robinson – IBM
Description	Nobody reads the product manual anymore, so it’s time to switch paradigms. Too many products rely on documentation to be the band-aid for poor design and usability. Today’s successful products deliver consumable, engaging interfaces that people use with little or no reading of a manual. This talk will describe how content strategy can build both enterprise-software interactions and information directly into the design, instead of documenting difficult user tasks in a separate manual or help system. A critical factor for a good design is the collaboration between the User Experience and Information Development teams. Specifically we'll cover how these teams use intuitive design, progressive disclosure models, and embedded assistance to achieve those goals.
Questions Answered	What strategies can help me design a product that's easy to use and understand? What are examples of a progressive disclosure model? How does content strategy fit into the user experience of a product? How do I, as a technical writer, influence better words on the product interface? How do I reconcile the input from a UX designer and a terminologist?
Level	Intermediate
Category	Design Thinking
Tags	collaboration, contentstrategy, design-thinking

Docs are Not Band-Aids for Poor Design